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Remember that to casual observers many people look alike and that false arrest is disagreeable.

3 Imagining that you are an agent in whose hands a piece of property has been placed, write a letter to a prospective customer picturing the property. Let the description be systematic, conveying a general impression first.

4 Describe some machine or contrivance in such a way as to impart a clear impression. Employ comparisons if

necessary.

5 Describe in a general way the plan of some park or village or locality, in bird's-eye view fashion mapping it out. Employ comparison; make careful transitions.

6 Imagining that you have lost a ring or a knife while on a ramble, write a note to a friend asking him to find it for you. Describe minutely the place where you think the article may be found.

7 Describe the course of a stream, or of a trail through the woods, or of a country road with which you are very familiar.

8 Describe in not more than sixty words the exterior of some familiar building as seen from one viewpoint, conveying as correct an impression as you can. Watch your sentence structure.

9 Describe the same building in as many words as you please and from as many viewpoints as may be necessary, emphasizing only such things as are characteristic. Try beginning with the more obvious matters, creating in the reader's mind a general picture; then fill in details. Close with the impression made by the building as a whole.

10 Invent a plan for some interior-a hunting camp for instance, or the cabin of a sloop, or a boy's workshop, or a store setting forth your plan so clearly that the listener or reader will see what you picture.

11 Describe an interior, real or imaginary, striving not only to give a clear picture but to convey vividly some one impression, as vast space, splendor, shabbiness, quaintness, perfect order, disorder, weirdness, gloom, poverty, or snugness.

12 Describe one of the following interiors, conveying not only a correct impression of size, but the arrangement of objects within the room: a workshop, a gymnasium, a parlor car, a waiting room, a church, a store.

13 Write a brief nature sketch, not over two hundred words, emphasizing what the eyes see, especially color.

14 Write a brief nature sketch giving the impressions registered by at least two of the senses.

15 Write a description of an extended view such as may be had from a hilltop or a tower.

16 Write a description of some view as it appears at different times of day or at different seasons of the year.

17 Sit before a window for ten minutes, recording accurately all that the eye sees.

18 Write a moving-picture description, the result of observations from a car window, or from a canoe drifting downstream, or from the deck of a ferryboat.

19 Write a description giving the setting for some scene remembered from a novel or a play.

20 Invent a setting appropriate for some action of your own imagining—a contest, a disaster, a festival, a crime.

21 Make a list of all the things you would wish to mention were you describing one of the following, and tell what you would wish particularly to emphasize:

A campaign parade, a room in a factory, a department store, a public library, a prairie, a fruit orchard, a country lane, a city wharf, a harbor, a circus tent just before the performance begins, a lunch room at recess, a booth at a fair, a mining camp, a kitchen the day before Thanksgiving, the stage of a theater, an athletic field, a city street, a plantation. Make a brief topical plan for such a description, indicating in some way the proportionate space to be given each topic.

22 Describe a tableau such as a snap shot might reveal at a critical moment in some comedy or tragedy that you have witnessed or in which you have had a part. Do not use over two hundred words.

23 Give a clear picture of a store window, emphasizing the impression made by the display.

24 Give a series of descriptions of the same store window as it appears to several pairs of eyes.

25 Playing the spectator, watch a group of children, noting not only what they do and say, but facial expression, tone of voice, gestures, etc. Record your observations.

26 Watch carefully for ten minutes any animal—a dog, an ant, a butterfly; then record your observations.

27 Study carefully for ten minutes some small objecta leaf, a flower, a bird's feather, a tuft of moss; then record your sense impressions.

28 Try to describe in single sentences four or five of your intimate friends.

29 Describe in detail a countenance.

30 Describe a person in the act of doing something characteristic-a cobbler at his bench, a fisherman mending his net, an auctioneer selling his goods, a blacksmith at his forge.

31 Remembering that character is revealed in many ways through countenance, voice, gait, conversation, employment, etc., give as clear an impression as you can of any individual, real or imagined. Use as many forms of discourse as you please, the one thing essential being that the portrait shall be true to life.

32 Bring out the characteristics of a group of people through their conversation, introducing here and there little phrases revealing facial expression and gestures and tone of voice.

33 Describe accurately the weather of the past two or three days.

34 Describe a "spell" of weather, emphasizing cold, wet, windiness, sultriness, heat, continual change, or drought.

35 Give from accurate observation a description of daybreak or nightfall.

36 Bring to class good specimens of description found in books or magazines, and be prepared to tell what you see in them to admire.

CHAPTER IX

EXPOSITION

Exposition is another name for explanation. In some of its forms it differs little from narration, the distinction lying in the fact that, as a rule, the subject Definition matter of narration is particular. For example, a composition telling how a certain guide, on a certain occasion, built a camp fire would be classed as narration; a composition giving general directions for building camp fires would be classed as exposition. Fortunately this nice distinction is not one that the writer must keep constantly in mind.

Exposition is perhaps the most practical of all forms of discourse and the form most often employed from day to day. It plays an important part in education. Most textbooks are mainly expos

Exposition practical

itory. Recitations are largely but explanations. In the English class the pupil employs exposition when giving the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences, or pointing out the leading characteristics of an author's style, or telling why he thinks a certain passage beautiful. In the history recitation when a pupil explains some great event by showing the causes that led up to it, and in the science recitation when he classifies the leading varieties of plant life, or tells how coal is formed, the account is expository. Exposition is employed almost as freely after school-days are over, by the overseer instructing his men, the merchant setting forth the merits of his wares, the minister expounding his text, the lawyer interpreting

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